Tangled Webs
Page 15
This story is developing…
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Wishing you a fabulous fall and a most scarylicious Halloween! Thank you for reading Tangled Webs!
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-Xo, Veronica
Also by Veronica Cline Barton
WWW.VERONICACLINEBARTON.COM
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My American Almost-Royal Cousin Series
Book 1-The Crown for Castlewood Manor
Book 2-Cast, Crew, & Carnage: The Filming of Castlewood Manor
Book 3-Deadly Receptions: The Debut of Castlewood Manor
Book 4-Mistletoe and Mayhem: Yuletide at Castlewood Manor
Book 5-Double Trouble: Showtime at Castlewood Manor
Book 6-Twins in the City: Playtime at Castlewood Manor
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The Haunted Series
Book 1-Hearth Fires
Book 2-Tangled Webs
About the Author
Award-winning author Veronica Cline Barton earned graduate degrees in both engineering and business and has had successful careers in the software and technology industries. Her lifelong love affair with British cozy, murder mysteries inspired her to embark on a literary career. When not traveling and spinning mystery yarns, she lives in California with her husband, Bruce, and her two cats, Daisy and Ebbie.
Author’s Notes/Acknowledgments
Bibiana Krall
Widow’s Walk, a spooky traipse through Cape Cod. As a region this area is an incredible experience. Think Ichabod Crane the schoolmaster and Melville toiling away by candlelight on his classic about an unusual whale and Captain Ahab. The cape was once important in the whaling industry and is deeply connected to maritime history in the United States.
If you have not been, you should consider putting it on your bucket list. Falmouth came alive in this classic-style, haunted mansion story (I made up the history and the specific house) to not only give insight into how the past feeds the present, but to flip a switch and the narrative.
Oddly within a week of writing the first draft in February of 2021, I met two unrelated people with close family ties to Falmouth.
I was home in Savannah at the time and to be honest, people from Cape Cod tend not to stray to this area too much, they seem to prefer their own region or South Florida and Orlando where the sun shines a little brighter.
Falmouth is a historic village that many travelers overlook to get out to Martha’s Vineyard or other more popular tourist destinations.
Often in a traditional ghost story someone from the present saves a ghost from something terrible.
Why not create a guardian angel-like character that watches someone grow up and has always wanted only one thing?
The happiness wanted for their charge and perhaps this is their release, in that they never had this wisdom while they walked amongst the living.
I realize that the representation of Sarah is troubling and rather scary, but I also think that if my life had been anything like hers, I would not be wearing pink cardigans and baking sugar cookies either.
There’s a secondary idea that perhaps what we think we understand about what waits beyond the veil might actually be the dead opposite. No pun intended.
This perfectly sums up my feelings of the past year and about so many things.
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Spirit Island came to me from perusing a gorgeous photograph of Maligne Lake in a Nat Geo article about the Canadian Rockies, which is where the real Spirit Island is located.
I thought I knew a lot about the area. It turns out I didn’t.
The most amazing thing about Jasper is its natural, rugged beauty, but below the surface there is a powerful history of many who came before us. You can feel it out there in every dawn and every sunset, but only if you turn off your electronics and lean in to the solitude.
Maligne Lake drains annually because of an intricate set of shale caverns running under the lake bottom. The native tribes that once lived in the area believed that it held deep magic and had an unrivaled reverence for the mystical metamorphosis as the lake changed with the seasons.
The Shuswaggi is basically the Canadian version of the Loch Ness Monster. It’s a giant fish that lives in all or one of the massive, glacial lakes.
Many early explorers from France and Britain viewed this area as a way to make their fortunes, while others continue to protect nature, and continue the indigenous traditions of family and respect their sacred land.
Part of the local lore is the legend of young lovers from opposing tribes whose families kept them apart because of perceived differences.
Sound familiar William?
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Ragno Dazante, my dance macabre with Pietra is based on lesser-known Italian folklore from the 11th Century.
Apparently Italy has some pretty scary spiders, but it’s not a ground spider or “tarantula” as you might envision.
It is a wolf spider, native to the southern parts of Italy.
As the legend goes, hundreds of people in Taranto were stricken with a mysterious fever and danced like maniacs until exhaustion and some even went to their death.
It is a dance I used to perform as young person called the Tarantella. It was always my favorite, because of the romantic choreography and traditional costume of a dirndl skirt, a low-necked cotton blouse and a fitted vest sewn with velvet ribbons. It is a vibrant, folkloric dance representing a bizarre fever from a spider bite that makes you lose your mind.
I didn’t know any of this until I began writing this story and researched the origins of Taranto. I longed to write of Italy, as I want to go back to Europe soon and places like this are always on my radar.
My wanderlust led me to Taranto’s relationship with ancient seafaring and sometimes-warlike people from Sparta who settled the ancient city of Taranto.
The spirits offered his one to me and I adored writing it.
Archidamia the fierce battle maiden, and name of the super yacht in the story, spoke on behalf of the Spartan women, ‘With sword in hand.’ She contested the proposal of moving the local women to Crete to avoid an imminent invasion.
Famously she called for unification between the sexes in a time when women did not play equal roles. There have been a few times in history this happened, but not nearly enough.
That discussion to be continued, ad infinitum…
She said, “Spartans! I ask, by the memory of your race, Are ye worthy of the name!" Before ending her speech with, "Her women can die, and be free.”
The inhabitants of the city were moved by her passionate speech and they all stayed in Sparta. The females fought alongside their men and well…the rest is history.
Quotes in this passage are by Archidamia herself who served as Queen of Sparta with her husband King Eudamidas I (331-305 BC)
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Many thanks to my Beta and ARC readers, to our wonderful editor “The Word Refiner” and my incredible, thank goodness, Veronica has nerves of steel co-writer.
Thank you for taking my crazy, off-the-wall pandemic phone calls and not running away on a super yacht. Lol.
This is year two of this fantastic anthology. We made it through the devastating year of the world pandemic of 2020 and haven’t lost our marbles …yet.
I am extraordinarily proud that we continued to create through the loss and chaos brewing all around us.
My heart goes out to each and every one of you who have braved this difficult and lonely year of change.
Love and appreciation to my fantastic readers, especially to the Literati for your constant support of my writing journey.
Take care out there and do whatever you can to enjoy the #TangledWebs, Halloween season.
A “Hot Buttered Rum” and reading this story collection is a great way to kickoff the holidays and take some much deserved time for yourself!
If the spirit moves you to leave a short review where you purchased this book to help other readers find this anthology, know that it is deeply appreciated by the authors.
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Your consideration means the world to us.
Wishing you and your loved ones an abundant harvest, with peace, happiness and strength for the new year ahead.
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Take care out there. -Bibiana
Also by Bibiana Krall
WWW.BIBIANAKRALL.COM
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The Irish Phantom Series
Book 1-Corvus Hall
Book 2-Loftus Hall
Book 3-The Rage of Danu
Book 4-Mont Pelier
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The Haunted Series
Book 1-Hearth Fires
Book 2-Tangled Webs
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The Sophia Series
Book 1-Escape into the Blue
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The Hive
Troika
Abulon
Carolina Spirit
Esprit Caroline, French version
Noble Jones
Camp Century
Alice
Heartbeat
Leaving Pandora
Gender in Fiction: A collaborative study
Moon Zinc
The Getaway
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Audio Books
The Soul Keeper
Escape into the Blue
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Coming Soon:
The Paradise Garden-Book 2 (The Sophia Series)
Carolina Spirit (audiobook)
Troika (audiobook)
Corvus Hall (audiobook)
Special hardcover edition (The Irish Phantom Series)
Kleine Marula
River of Stars
Sky Island
About the Author
Bibiana Krall is a best-selling author and small-town girl from the midwest who left home at an early age and traveled the world. Eventually settling near Savannah, Georgia, she made a nest, created a family and built a dynamic career with a passion for culture, travel and private aviation. She earned an M.A. in Fiction and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Wilkes University CW. Bibiana writes novels and edgy short stories, and is one of the three, fabulous authors who host #BOOKEM, a YouTube vlog that supports literacy, and creates community with a focus on all things bookish. Bibiana is a published poet and a Deep Center Writing Fellow.
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Tangled Webs is her twenty-seventh title.
“I can call spirits from the vasty deep.”
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“Why, so can I; or so can any man:
But will they come when you do call for them? ”
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– William Shakespeare
About the Publisher